


Impact

by thaliaarche



Series: Precipice [3]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Ice Skating, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, Nonbinary Character, Olympics, Transphobia, figure skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-09 22:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 5,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8915209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thaliaarche/pseuds/thaliaarche
Summary: At the 2026 Olympics, aging figure skater Ciel Phantomhive fights for one last medal, even as younger athletes threaten to eclipse him. He barely notices as Sebastian Michaelis, once his rival for gold, is consumed by his own war.Ciel hits rock bottom.





	1. Chapter 1

The buzz of the morning alarm jolts Ciel Phantomhive awake. He pushes himself upright, back sore from the hotel’s hard mattress— though he is competing at the 2026 Olympics, he has elected to stay at a local hotel, rather than in the Olympic Village itself. The Village always bubbles over with noise and energy, and his coach, Grell, warns that he can afford no such distractions this time around.

Even without any distractions, Ciel didn’t nod off until late at night, and he estimates he slept around five-and-a-half hours. To make himself feel better, he rounds up to six. Six is more than normal.

As Ciel fudges his calculations, he pushes himself out of bed and peels off his pajamas, revealing limbs wrapped with bandages and mottled with bruises. He dresses and then heads down to the hotel restaurant. At breakfast, he labors through a plate of fruit and fish, all the while glaring at the end of the buffet where cinnamon buns are stacked high, taunting him, hopelessly at odds with his self-imposed diet.

When a group of giggling Olympic spectators crowd into the room, dressed in fan gear with cameras around their necks, Ciel lowers his head on instinct, trying to avoid their attention. He looks back up a moment later and snorts, remembering that nobody would think to look at him anyway.

* * *

“You can do it! You can land the quad, you’ve done it so many times before! You’re going to get out there and be fabulous . . .” Grell gesticulates at practice, the day before the team competition. Ciel might even have believed her, if not for the forced smile and the slightly crazed glint in her eye.

Ciel currently sits on a rinkside bench, tying on a new skate lace after an old one suddenly snapped, sending him sprawling. He glances at the ice, where his competitors are already well into practice, and tries to convince himself he wants to be out there with them.

He can’t recall the last time he was happy on the ice. He enjoys skating most when he excels at it, yet his performance at the Japan Open was mediocre. So was his skate at the European Championships. Skate Canada was an outright disaster, and for two years in a row he’s gotten nowhere near qualifying for the Grand Prix Finals. The only thing keeping him going is his need for Olympic gold . . .

Zooming by, Claude Faustus lands an obnoxiously perfect quad-quad combo, right in front of his face. Ciel tries to hate him for old times’ sake and triggers a swell of panic instead.

“Breathe. Breathe, dammit.”

On the opposite side of the rink, Sebastian seems not to notice Claude’s feat. Yet at just that moment he lifts his leg backwards, raises his arm, effortlessly folds his fingers to catch the blade of his skate above his head, and whirls in a speedy blur. Thus, he executes a perfect Biellmann spin, usually reserved for female skaters two-thirds his age. Claude shoots his brand-new ex-boyfriend a dirty look.

Ciel’s never been able to pull off either Claude’s combo or a Biellmann spin, and he curses both skaters under his breath while dragging himself back onto the ice. Yet a smile flickers over his face a moment later, when he lands a beautiful triple-triple combination of his own.

The rest of practice goes decently, adding only a few new bruises to Ciel’s collection. Afterwards, he collapses back on the bench to catch his breath. Grell joins him, and they fall into an old argument about whether to rearrange elements of his short program, decreasing the difficulty. Ciel firmly opposes the change, refusing to give up the points that the more difficult ordering could win. Eventually, he leaves the rink, then uses the bathroom, and finally goes to the changing room, after most of the other athletes have already left. As he approaches the door, he hears shouting— “There is no way in hell you’re winning this!”— then a violent metallic clang.

Claude Faustus stalks out of the room, red-faced and breathless, pushing past Ciel without another word. When Ciel walks in, he sees Sebastian, who has tucked his head down as he silently buttons up his coat. “Are you all right?”

 “Perfect,” Sebastian answers. He flashes Ciel a tight-lipped, empty smile and then follows Claude out.


	2. Chapter 2

Rachel and Vincent make it to town just in time for the traditional Phantomhive pre-game dinner.

“You’ll do fine at the team competition.” Rachel smiles at her son over her steaming bowl of soup.

“I might not drag the rest of the team down badly enough to lose the medal, you mean,” Ciel corrects. In the past four years, British skating has flourished; little sixteen-year-old Dollie, delicate as a real porcelain doll, has taken ladies’ singles by storm. Peter and Wendy— coincidentally named— likely won’t medal in pairs skating, but they’ll come pretty close. Ice dancing might go Britain’s way too, for once, if the judges don’t hate Molly’s dominatrix vibe. Everyone seems poised for success except Ciel . . .

“Have you heard what they’re saying about same-sex pairs divisions?” Vincent switches topics, seeing Ciel’s glum expression. “A lot more countries are adding them to their national skating championships, and the ISF might even take the plunge at the international level. Their initial market research is truly stunning— teenage girls are gaga over male-male pairs, for some reason.”

“You could try out pairs skating yourself,” Rachel remarks. “You were always too small to lift anybody else, but with same-sex couples . . .”

“No way in hell,” Ciel cuts her off. “I’m not letting some guy toss me around.”

"You could at least give it a try,” she says.

“Mom,” Ciel snaps, “learning thrown jumps would leave me in a wheelchair.”

Even a normal jump might leave him in a wheelchair, soon. Alas, coaching is his best bet if he tries to continue his career in skating, yet if any aspiring skater got stuck dealing with just him for hours on end he’d pity them.


	3. Chapter 3

Ciel shoots upright in bed, an hour before his alarm is set to ring, sweaty and breathing hard. One second later, he falls forward, dropping his face into his hands and sighing.

He’s gotten himself a recurring nightmare.

In his dream, he cowers in freezing darkness, locked in a cast-iron cage. He folds his hands around the bars of the cage and shakes, straining to pry them apart. He kicks at the stone floor. He searches for a door, for a lock to pick, and finds none.

Though he’s no psychologist, he has long since decoded the meaning. His age— 26, near-death by singles skating’s standards— forms the cage, along with the non-stop injuries that have piled up over the years. This metaphorical cage will keep him from the gold.

He tries to go back to sleep for a few minutes, only to recognize the effort as futile. As he forces himself from bed, he groans, feeling a burning ache in his tortured back and a duller throb in his left leg. He can’t remember which falls originally caused the pain, but a restless night on a stony mattress certainly didn’t help . . .

Time for the team competition.


	4. Chapter 4

Ciel drags a serviceable performance out of himself, somehow. He doesn’t derail Britain’s chances at the podium, though he doesn’t significantly help either. He’ll have to wait for his teammates’ scores to trickle in before finding out the final medal standings.

After skating, he observes the remaining competitors, watching the first-time Olympians soar with verve he barely remembers himself. Soon comes America’s turn, and Claude Faustus takes the stage . . .

“I thought America was putting up Sebastian again,” Ciel remarks, glancing at Grell.

“They changed their paperwork this morning,” she says. “Will said something about reinjury.”

“What does that mean?”

“He wasn’t forthcoming,” she mutters, and Ciel falls silent.

Claude’s music thrums with layers of synthetic sound, charging forward without any clear tune as basses thud in relentless rhythms. Now age 24, Claude has come into his own as a skater, and he dominates the rink, shooting around the ice in a sleek black suit woven with weblike silver threads, pounding out his explosive combos. He skates with sheer, showstopping power, and the crowd bellows its approval. The score steamrolls over Ciel’s.

At the end of the day, Ciel’s score ends up being the median of the lot. He is in the middle, an exemplar of literal mediocrity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm behind on answering comments, sorry! I promise I will reply.


	5. Chapter 5

A few days later, the team competition concludes. Thanks to Ciel’s teammates, Britain obtains third place, while Claude’s fantastic skate helps get America the gold. Ciel cradles the bronze medal in his hands and studies it, knowing full well that he should be grateful. He’s aware that most people wouldn’t dare dream of one Olympic medal, much less three.

Still, he aches for gold.

-

Before the individual competition, he throws himself into his practices. Between weight-training sessions at the gym, he snatches lunch at the Village cafeteria, pointedly ignoring the triple-chocolate brownies and settling for steamed vegetables and fish. Sebastian passes by with his own meal, a tiny salad. After a moment of hesitation, Ciel opens his mouth to call out when—

“Ciel, dear, would you mind my sitting next to you?”

Ciel turns to see none other than Aleister Chambers, standing behind him in a faded, bedazzled Team Canada jacket. He sets himself down before Ciel can reply.

“My sincerest congratulations to Britain,” Aleister gushes. “And good for you, going out on a Olympic medal.”

Ciel gives him a puzzled look. “Going out?”

Aleister nods and prattles on: “Do you know what you’ll do next?”

“Next after what?”

“After you retire, obviously. I suppose you were trying to keep it under wraps, but it’s all the talk of the Village.”

Ciel gawks at him. “I’ve never said anything about retiring!”

“No?” His eyebrows shoot straight up. “Huh. I got out when I was 25, myself, and the jumps were already killing me. And then the arthritis set in . . . Ah—” he flops dramatically onto the table— “thank heaven for the painkillers.”

“This,” Ciel sputters, “this isn’t my last competition!”

Aleister pushes himself back up with a snort. He takes a spoonful of his chocolate pudding and slurps it, while Ciel wishes to be somewhere, anywhere else.


	6. Chapter 6

The night before the men’s short program, Ciel’s subconscious cooperates for the first time all season. He falls asleep early and dreams of his short program at World’s last year— a lovely skate, from back when he could still land quads with a modicum of consistency. His brain analyzes every element and finds almost nothing to penalize.

When he wakes, he whispers a promise to himself: “I’ll get the gold.”

He doesn’t watch the performances before his, straining to preserve this fragile calm.

“You’ve got this,” Grell tells him as he steps onto the ice, and he believes her.

He attacks his routine with a burst of energy, landing a triple-triple combo, then a triple toe. On the quad salchow, he falls.

Not the end of the world, he reminds himself, as he stands up once more and pushes on. The judges will award him partial credit for completing his rotations, after all, and Olympians have won gold after worse mistakes. As he contemplates this, he trips on a relatively simple part of a step sequence.

All at once, self-possession slips from his grasp. His body rebels, heart hammering, windpipe constricting, legs locking in place. He feels as if the ice has escaped from under his blades to swim in his veins. He doesn’t want to skate.

What’s the next part of his routine?

He two-foots a landing, and thus the gold flees his grasp.

The micromanaging part of his brain awakens with a vengeance, denouncing his every motion, even as he strains to shut it up. Too tired to build up the speed required for his next jump, he removes a rotation from his triple lutz.

He wants to never skate again.

He hurls himself into a triple axel. He doesn’t know why or how, but his right skate catches strangely on the ice as he lands, and he goes sprawling along the ground, legs jammed into the splits. He throws out his hands, just barely keeping his head from striking the ice, and pain shoots through his right leg, his wrists, and his hips, all at once. Something cracks loud and clear at the impact.

He won’t ever skate again.


	7. Chapter 7

“I can skate tomorrow.”

“Your wrist is broken, Ciel,” Rachel murmurs. Both his parents hover with Grell around his bed as the doctors examine him.

“I don’t skate on my wrist,” Ciel retorts. “I still got 50 points from the short, and if I do exceptionally well in the long I can break into the top 10 . . .”

“You tore a ligament in your right knee,” Vincent says. “That's not your dominant leg, but still . . .”

“I can do it,” Ciel protests. “It’s just one day—"

“You hurt your goddamn knee,” Grell snaps, finally, after a whole year of forced smiles. “And you’re not 18-year-old Sebastian Michaelis. You’re 26-year-old Ciel Phantomhive, and I would like for you to still be able to walk ten years from now!” She swallows hard and lowers her voice. “You’ve had a stunning, dramatic career, Ciel, and I’ve adored coaching you— yes, even this season. But I think it’s time for you to gracefully take your bronze and exit the stage.”

“I know we haven’t really talked about it yet,” Vincent says, placing a hand on Ciel’s unbroken arm, “but your mother and I think it’s time for retirement.”

Ciel closes his eyes, trembling too hard to reply.


	8. Chapter 8

Ciel returns to his hotel room early the next morning and collapses on his bed with a cast on his arm and a brace on his leg. He curses himself— of course, the moment he can’t skate anymore, that’s all he wants to do.

His dreams are filled with clips of himself— highlights of his career, with a focus on jumps. On quads and triple axels. When he wakes up to fetch a new ice pack, his face is streaked with tears, and he tells himself they’re from the pain.

He falls back asleep, and the cage reappears. He is now surrounded by hordes of masked spectators, all jeering at him as he thrusts his hands through the bars, shouting, begging to be set free.

The dream subsides, and he falls into a heavy sleep.

-

When Ciel wakes up, he feels as if he is still caught in a dream. Even as his legs and wrists throb, his head remains mired in a numb haze.

He glances at his phone and realizes his parents have called him twenty times and are now heading to the hotel themselves. He texts them, promising that a visit is unnecessary, that he is indeed alive and not, say, at the bottom of a bottle.

A bottle doesn’t sound like the worst idea, actually.

Dressing takes effort, thanks to the cast and the brace, yet Ciel grits his teeth and eventually finishes. With greater effort, he pushes himself outside, hobbling to the Village and heading straight to the clinic for a check-up appointment.

Bearing a bottle of pain medicine, he drifts back out through the Village under a bloody red sunset, trudging through slush among crowds of athletes. He spots the rest of his country’s skating team engaged in a pre-dinner snowball fight near the British dorm, shrieking and giggling as they lob their icy missiles. They don’t notice him as he passes by, and he returns to the hotel to sleep once more.


	9. Chapter 9

Ciel’s sleep schedule has gone to hell, and it’s mid-evening before he wakes up the next day. He texts his parents— “yes, still alive”— takes his pills, and goes to another Village appointment. As he leaves the clinic, he runs smack into Lizzie Midford, yet another retiree.

“Ciel,” she exclaims, “I haven’t seen you this whole time! Come with me, the Americans are throwing the best party.”

“I can’t drink because of the meds,” Ciel’s inner introvert says before he can stop it, “or dance because of the injuries.”

“There’ll be apple pie,” she coos. “And sweets are your favorite, as I recall . . .”

Ciel rolls his eyes. “You got me.”

Lizzie grins and starts pulling him along by his uninjured arm, and they plunge into the Village’s inner sancta, festooned with streamers and national flags, crowded with carousing athletes. Marveling at the cheer, Ciel wishes that he had roomed here. Perhaps he wouldn’t have ended up so far inside his own head.

“What are you planning to do after skating?” Lizzie pipes up as they walk.

Ciel sighs— it’s common knowledge that he’s retiring, even though he hasn’t fully grasped the fact himself. “I’ll go to college, law school, maybe.”

He throws out the answers, yet he doesn’t quite believe them.

Lizzie keeps up a comfortable stream of chatter, talking about the fashion line she’s started since leaving skating— “I’m wearing one of my outfits now as self-promotion . . . Not that anybody’s paying attention to little old me.”

Ciel hears the nostalgia in her voice. Then he glances at her clothing and realizes that she’s still nearly as fit as she was in 2018, gorgeous in a tight yellow-and-red shirt and a black skirt that shows off perfectly toned legs. They had had quite the fling, eight years back, and he’s almost tempted to rekindle the romance . . .

“Sieglinde!” Upon entering the dorm, Lizzie yelps like she’s still a teenager, darts forward to Sieglinde Sullivan, who has a gold medal strung around her neck, and kisses her full on the mouth. “My darling, you were glorious tonight . . .”

Ciel gapes. As the two begin jabbering in German and pecking at each other with more kisses, he wanders off to find the pie. Inevitably, he ends up among a group of skaters. Soma Kadar, his 2018 Olympic roommate, perches upon a throne-like central chair, gossiping about the new same-sex ice skating contests. He’s planning to come out of retirement and compete on India’s behalf, he announces, along with some old friend of his. Ciel makes sure to nod at appropriate moments, yet his stuffy head processes only half the conversation.

A few hours and more than a few slices of pie later, Ciel flinches as Claude stumbles in from some side hallway. He’s got a beer bottle in one hand, a girl’s arm draped around his shoulders, and two gold medals hanging around his neck. He immediately staggers towards the cooler, which happens to be by Ciel.

Just then, Sebastian comes in from outside, face bitten red by cold.

“Hey, Seb!”

As Claude calls out, the crowd starts to look, yet Sebastian ignores him, striding through the main hall towards the American dorm rooms.

“Seb—” Claude grabs his elbow as he passes— “have a drink with Hannah and me.”

At his touch, Sebastian freezes. “Thank you, but no.”

“You need to loosen up, crazy.” Claude moves to block Sebastian’s way, towering at least half a foot over him.

“I’m sorry, did _you_ just call me crazy?” Sebastian tilts his head up and gives a perfectly polite smile.

“Hey, I’m not the one sulking over losing a medal I didn’t deserve the first place.” He shrugs. “Largely because I didn’t lose a medal, but still.”

“I’m not sulking.”

“Yeah?” Claude snorts. “Then have a drink.”

“Stop telling me what to do.”

“Does the beer have too many calories for you?” Claude singsongs in mock sympathy.

The room falls silent as Sebastian reaches up to stroke Claude’s cheek. “Nothing beneath the armor, hm?”

Still armed with his bland smile, Sebastian flees. Ciel tries to follow him but can’t, thanks to the crowds of people in the way and his protesting leg. When Claude comes near him to secure additional beer, he snaps, “You’re a terrible drunk, Faustus.”

“You’re a terrible skater, Phantomhive.”

Ciel stares, debating whether or not to deck him— sure, Claude’s huge, but he’s also too intoxicated to dodge. Especially with the cast, Ciel’s arm could deliver some serious pain . . .

But Hannah drags Claude off to some other shadowy corner. Ciel finds a seat by the dance floor, and he watches Sieglinde and Lizzie chatter about gold medals. When Sebastian still hasn’t returned an hour later, Ciel gives up and heads back to the hotel, mind foggier than ever.


	10. Chapter 10

Ciel awakens at dawn and stares at the ceiling above his bed. Some time later, he relocates to his desk, opens his laptop, and spends several hours staring at the screen, looking at videos of the men’s singles skating competition. He skips over his own disastrous short program, but he watches every routine besides.

Claude reigns on the ice, swaggering around the rink between preposterously demanding jumps, somehow justifying his smugness through the difficulty of his routine. Ciel hopes those quads destroy his legs someday soon.

In both his routines, Sebastian is exquisite, spellbinding, utterly self-possessed, yet Ciel sees a savage edge in his artistry. He dances with cold fury, ice crystals spraying in arcs like embers from a fire wherever his skate strikes the rink. On every spin, he folds himself into increasingly punishing shapes, and he infuses every motion, every tedious hop of a step sequence with grace and delicacy and intention. Ciel’s heart twists, and he yearns for a second chance to skate, to make art and love the ice as Sebastian so obviously does.

Ciel’s inner critic points out that Sebastian’s skating is not perfect— some of his jumps seem tight, timid, as if he’s scared to land hard on his dominant leg . . .

Reinjury.

Ciel groans. Sure enough, at the end of the long program, Sebastian limps off the ice while placing all his weight on his right leg, just as he did in 2018. When he hears his score, the same dead expression drops down upon his face, and he receives his silver medal with tired, lightless eyes.

Ciel watches his two routines again and again, teetering on the verge of tears evoked by Sebastian’s aesthetic perfection. He wishes to skate with some semblance of that perfection himself.

Perhaps old dogs can learn new tricks?


	11. Chapter 11

Ciel’s nightmares have shifted, abandoning the cage for an endless black hole. In the darkness, he confronts himself— a bruised, broken version of himself who gazes down at him with outraged eyes.

“You should have tried harder,” the other Ciel rumbles in an unusually deep voice.

Ciel admits this is true. He could always have tried harder.

“You should have eaten properly, like I told you to.”

Also true, he knows. This season, he entirely cut out sugary junk food, yet he could have done more to regulate his diet. Even more protein, even fewer carbs . . .

“You should have slept properly and quit this stupid psychological drama.”

Ciel agrees— sleeping without psychological drama sounds wonderful.

“You should have had the gold, dammit.”

Not necessarily, Ciel contests. His performances had slid steadily downhill all season, even while Claude’s skating broke world records.

“Don’t talk back like that.”

Why not, Ciel demands.

“You’ve had no focus all season, you’re now completely finished, and all this sex and gender trash is to blame.”

Ciel nearly launches into a full-on shouting match when that strange last clause startles him awake. He realizes that the words were no figment of his imagination— a deep voice is really thundering next door.

Bleary-eyed, Ciel pulls on his shoes and blunders outside as the voice keeps ranting about dresses and sex changes and boyfriends. Ciel’s drowsy brain can’t comprehend much, and he bangs on the door.

“If you don’t need the full surgery, you’re not really trans,” the voice says, increasing in volume as footsteps storm towards the door. “And if you want attention so badly, you should have tried working on your skating instead—”

The door opens, and Ciel finds himself facing a tall, silver-haired man with a phone to his ear. He wears a collared shirt, dress slacks and a polite, thin-lipped smile that Ciel’s only seen one place else.

In that familiar passive-aggressive tone, Ash Michaelis, Sebastian’s father, asks, “May I help you?”

“Sorry to bother you,” Ciel says, summoning his best poker face, “but it’s difficult to sleep next door.”

A look of horror flashes across Ash’s face and disappears as quickly.

"But of course.“ He gives an obsequious nod. “I apologize.”

For the second time, Ciel has an urge to ram his cast into someone’s face, but Ash quickly shuts the door and saves himself.

Ciel goes back to bed, then clambers right out. His mind races, alert and clear for the first time in months, while he dresses as speedily as he can and rushes to the Village, reaching the American dorm at daybreak. He steps over Claude, who is snoring on the floor of the main room, searches the hallways, and finally knocks at Sebastian’s door.

Once again, Ciel thinks back on the 2018 Olympics, and once again Sebastian opens the door with circles under his eyes and a brace on his left leg.

Ciel gives a lopsided smile. “Do you want something to eat?”

Sebastian falls forward, shattering into tears, and Ciel barely catches him.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter!

Sebastian is staying in a small, plain room with white sheets and whitewashed walls. His feathered black costume for the exhibition gala lies rumpled on the bed. Quietly, he shuts the door, as Ciel takes a seat inside.

“So you got an earful, didn’t you?” Sebastian mutters, still wiping away tears. “After all these years of building up our facade, he’s the one who burns it down.”

“Perfectionism runs in the family, huh?”

“You have no idea.” He inhales, shuddering, and falls silent.

After a moment, Ciel breaks the quiet: “What pronouns do you prefer?”

“Oh, you heard that.” Sebastian flinches, then shrugs. “I don’t really care.”

“So . . . he/him?”

“So I really don’t care. I’m male, female, neither, all of it . . . I just get the feeling this body isn't _real_  sometimes. The only constants in my idea of my ‘true form’ are black leather boots with six-inch heels.” He snorts.

Ciel tilts his head. “Huh.”

“What?”

“It does seem wrong to limit you with something as flimsy as a gender boundary.”

“You believe me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because I don’t know who the hell I am, most days?”

“You’re magic, Sebastian.”

Sebastian’s jaw clenches, as if he’ll cry once again, but he instead speaks, voice low, lips quivering in rage. “Tell that to them.”

“Who?”

“To William, and the American officials who pulled me off the team competition. To Claude, and his precious gold medal. Tell it to my dad . . .” He gives a sharp chuckle. “It’s the story of my life— everyone orders me around. I’m such a good dog, really, I’ll do whatever I’m told. Sit, fetch, jump . . . Retire.”

Ciel’s eyes snap up. “But you don’t want to retire, right?”

Sebastian shakes his head mutely.

Ciel peers down through the window at the bustling Olympic Village below, and the words spill out. “You’ve got so much more to give to the ice, if you could just get a little bit of rest, if everyone would just get out of your way—”

“If you could just enjoy skating again,” Sebastian murmurs.

“Then there’s the fact that you’ve dedicated every minute of your life to the ice,” Ciel keeps on, voice growing hard. “You’ve practically sold your soul to this sport—”

“And no matter how beautiful you are on the ice, you don’t exactly have a life outside it—”

“They’re taking us out of the game too early,” Ciel concludes. He continues, pretending to speak casually, even as Sebastian directs a curious look his way: “What’s the status of your leg?”

“It needs therapy and rest— about half a year off the ice.”

“Same here,” Ciel says. “Any other major injuries? Arms? Right leg? Back?”

“Those are sore but intact at the moment, though another year of quads may do them all in.”

“And how’s your eating?” He almost whispers the question.

Sebastian narrows his eyes. “I want food to go to hell.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I by and large detest food, unless I can cook it myself and control every molecule that goes into it and remove as much sugar as possible, and, while I very much enjoy cooking, I currently don’t have the time or space to do it. But,” he sighs, “I always ate enough to skate, and now I’ll eat enough to survive— enough to function and do whatever it is that non-skaters do.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Does this questioning have a purpose? Are you plotting to send me to rehab or—”

“We’ve always skated the wrong direction, you and I.”

Sebastian’s mouth falls open, and he glances down at Ciel’s left leg, then his own, both currently wrapped in braces. Unusual among skaters, they both consider their left leg to be dominant, and so they skate and spin clockwise, even while their peers prefer counter-clockwise circles. It was the lack of partners who shared a dominant left leg that originally pushed Ciel towards singles skating, when he was still a young child . . .

“We both need a year off,” Ciel says, “and you, with all due respect, should get the hell away from L.A., and US skating in general.”

“I . . . can’t argue with that. But we can’t take a year off and expect the jumps to work when we get back. Men’s pairs skating is going to need the quad, and, with all due respect, neither of us will be able to pull that off in two years, even if we stay in competition.”

“Who said anything about pairs skating?”

Sebastian frowns at that. “What are you talking about?”

“Ice dancing, which won’t require jumps, seeing how it doesn’t even allow them.”

“Ice dance—“ Sebastian recoils. “You?”

“Hey, I’m capable of dancing!”

“I distinctly remember you stepping on Lizzie Midford’s foot five measures in a row.”

Because I was staring at you, Ciel thinks.

“That was eight years ago,” he splutters out loud. “And I’m not saying we’ll be the best at it. I don’t even care if we’re the best. But I need another chance to be on the ice, and I’d like to be there with you.”

“But we can’t . . .”

“Can’t we? I’ve never known when to quit, and you _don't_ quit. And we’re not even that old by ice dancing’s standards, and there aren’t any obvious challengers within Britain . . .”

“You’ve got a cruel streak,” Sebastian interrupts. “Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it can help you keep your head in competition and all that, but . . . I don’t want to make the same sort of mistake again.”

He struggles for words. “I’m not like Claude or the rest of them, I won’t be cruel to you,” he at last breathes. “Please believe me.”

Sebastian shifts, contemplating, his hair throwing his face into shadow. Finally, he turns back to Ciel, and fire glitters in his eyes. “We can try it for a year. Just 2028, and, if we’re too tired after that, we quit. Will you shake on it?”

Ciel grasps Sebastian’s hand, grinning. Finally, he’s free from the cage.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed that! Ciel's antics will continue in the fourth part of this story, Awakening.
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated!


End file.
